Regular readers know the wind up here does not mess around. In the winter of 2023–24, one of our typical storms brought hurricane-force winds that peeled whole patches of shingles right off the roofs over the north and south wings of the house. The stopgap was very high-tech: pavers, lots and lots of them, laid on top of thick garbage bags so we wouldn’t lose more bits and water would stop leaking into the foyer.
Pavers are not a long-term roofing strategy, so in July 2024 I hired Eastman Roofing & Waterproofing to tear off both wings and start fresh. They’re the folks who put the exhaust fan in the garage roof back in 2021, so I already knew they did good work. The crew showed up early on July 24th, suited up like they were about to decontaminate something and got to work. They tore off both wings at once, and by mid-afternoon the whole thing was down to bare decking.
Then came my favorite part–a boom truck from RL Trucking rolled up the driveway loaded with pallets of shingles, and instead of anyone hauling bundles up a ladder, the truck just plucked the pallets off its bed and set them right on the roof. By evening the new shingles were lined up along both ridges as if waiting for a bus.
Side note: while this was happening on top of the house, I was spending July 25th at the County Planning office. When Eastman’s project manager went to pull the roof permit, he was turned away because the old red tag from the Pit saga was still lurking in County’s system. So I drove down there with my checkbook; how that afternoon went is covered in Part 4 of the documentary. Suffice to say, the roof was the easy part.
Anyway, over the next few days the crew worked their way across both roof wings to get the under-layers down.
By August 5th it was done. The new roof is a CertainTeed Integrity Roof System with a “lifetime” warranty: 1) Presidential Shake TL shingles in Aged Bark; 2) Presidential starter shingles along the edges; 3) Mountain Ridge caps on the hips and ridges. All told, it came to 42 squares (for those keeping score, a square is 100 square feet, so that’s 4,200 square feet of shingles). Aged Bark is a darker, multi-toned brown–quite a change from the faded tan shingles it replaced. A nice extra touch: Eastman coated all the roof vents to match the shingles, so instead of a bunch of pipes poking up like sore thumbs, the vents and pipes all blend right in. Best of all, they used extra nails (five instead of the standard three) to prevent further “flare-ups.”
Eastman also added extra insurance: an ice and water guard running two-thirds of the way up the east side of the north wing’s roof to help keep water out of the foyer. The foyer has had leak problems since the house was built, and we’ve been battling the issues since the day we moved in. The real culprit is the flat roof over the foyer, north wing bathroom and linen hallway. It was originally tar paper, and in 2015 we had it redone as a foam roof, but it still has just a single drain. If that drain gets blocked, the whole roof fills up like a paddling pool and water finds its way inside, as we learned the hard way in 2017. So I have a calendar reminder to check the foyer/bathroom roof and the great room and studio roofs, which were also tar paper until they got the foam treatment in 2015.
The roof was done. The dust was not. Our ceilings are tongue-and-groove throughout the house, and there’s no attic, so the only thing between the old roof and our living space was the wood itself. Which meant everything the tear-off knocked loose had exactly one place to go–down through every seam in the ceiling boards and onto everything below. People asked me why I didn’t throw down some sheets and drop cloths to protect things, and the short answer to that is we simply do not own the quantity of fabric we would have needed. So once the crew left, out came a mop and a broom, and I cleaned every ceiling in the north wing: my office, the boys’ room, the blue room, our bedroom and the north hall. Then I dusted all the furniture and knick-knacks before vacuuming. The house cleaners tackled the foyer, kitchen, and guest bedroom and bath. Even the closets got a dusting. Taking all my coats out and shaking them was enough, and you will notice in the pics below that most of my nice shoes already live in dust bags. Thankfully the closets in our bedroom have their own ceilings which, while we hate them because they don’t utilize the space or natural light well, provided ample dust protection for this project. The upside is that my donation pile grew, all the rooms got a deep clean, and by the time I was done I was even more organized.
And here’s how it looked from up high a few months later, once the trees started turning.
Bring on the wind.
(On second thought, don’t.)